This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
With increasing environmental awareness and tighter regulations, cost-effective strategies for liquid-liquid separations demonstrating improved efficacy are needed. This is especially true for separation of oil from water (or other aqueous phase components), especially in industrial waste waters and oil spill clean ups, for example. In particular, membrane-based separation technologies are becoming more attractive compared to conventional gravity separators, because of their lower energy costs and applicability across a wide range of industrial effluents. However, there remains a need for improved membrane separator materials that can be used in a vast array of different technological fields and applications for increased, cost-effective, continuous separations processes.